Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

good morning and welcome to the finance and management committee meeting of Tuesday January

27th 2026 the time is now 9 30 a.m and this meeting may come to order before before taking

roll I will provide instructions on how to submit speaker cards for items on this agenda if you're

here with us in chamber and would like to submit a speaker card please fill one out and turn one

into myself or a clerk representative no later than 10 minutes after the start of

this meeting or before the item is read into record registering to speak via

zoom is now due 24 hours prior to the start of this meeting time this meeting

came to order at 9 30 a.m. and speaker cards will no longer be accepted 10

minutes after making that time 9 40 a.m. we'll now proceed with taking roll

Sorry.

Council members Brown.

Present.

Council member Unger.

Here.

Council member Wong.

Present.

And chair Ramachandran.

Here.

Thank you.

We have four members present.

And before we begin chair,

do you have any announcements at this time?

No, welcome to the first finance committee of 2026.

Looking forward to a productive and positive year.

Thank you. Starting off with item number one, approval of the draft minutes from the committee meeting held on December 9th, 2025, and we do not have any speakers on this item.

I entertain a motion.

Move approval.

Thank you. That was a motion made by Council Member Brown, seconded by Council Member Wong.

To accept the draft minutes from the committee meeting held on December 9th, 2025, on roll, Council Members Brown.

Aye.

Unger.

Aye.

Wong.

Aye.

And Chair Ramachandran.

Thank you, item number one passes with four ayes.

Now reading in item number two,

determination of schedule of outstanding committee items.

And we do have one speaker on this item.

To the administration, any changes?

No changes at this time, thank you.

Okay, we can move to public speakers.

Calling in the public speaker

that signed up for item number two, Mrs. Sato-Olobala.

I'm asking that the city administrator's annual report on spending contracts up to $250,000,

which has not been done since 2023, be brought to this body.

A report on business closures and how that has impacted revenue for the city.

A report on Democratic dollars.

The Ethics Commission is speaking as if in 2028

there will be revenue available,

but they've been informed by President Jenkins

there will be no money available in 2028

for democracy dollars.

A report on why Oakland was not included

in the state grant for $419 million for homelessness.

a report on outstanding invoices in the City of Oakland and lastly a report on

fiscal spending related to the NSA thank you for your comments share that

concludes all speakers on item number two okay I will entertain a motion so

moved

thank you that was a motion made by councilmember Unger seconded by council

Brown to accept the determination of scheduled outstanding committee items as

is on roll council members Brown aye Unger aye Wong aye and chair Ramachandran

aye thank you item number two passes with four ayes to accept the determination

of scheduled outstanding committee items as is now reading in item number three

receive an informational report on the Oakland's police and fire retirement

systems PIFRS or systems investment portfolio as of September 30th 2025 and we do have one public

speaker that signed up. Good morning committee chair and members of the finance committee my

name is Taylor Jenkins and I am the investment and operations manager for the Oakland police

and fire retirement system more commonly known as PIFRS. The purpose of today's report is to give

you a quarterly update on the status of the of the PIFRS fund. To assist me in presenting this

information I have David Sandwich from Makeda Investments. Just to give you a

brief overview, PIFRS is a closed retirement system closed in 1976. All

current active employees were then became members of CalPERS. Currently all

the members are retired and as of as of the date of this report we had 585

members and approximately 498 million in investments. And then based on the most

recent actuarial evaluation dated July 1, 2025, PEPERS was 100% funded. Next I'll hand it over

to our consultant who will give you more detail on the investment portfolio.

It is January and the report's dated 930 so I will just give a very brief summary without having

you flip through the book. As highlighted by Teir, the portfolio was at 498 million as of

September 30th preliminarily through December it's at 500 million dollars and had a 12.4% return

that includes the 500 million includes the benefits that are being paid out of the portfolio

the other good news is that we have fully transitioned the portfolio to 60 60 plus percent

fixed income so we've successfully done our first stage of de-risking we're going to move forward

with the board tomorrow in the next couple of meetings and talk about next steps for the

the portfolio and asset allocation,

but the portfolio is doing very well.

The only thing I'll highlight is that this portfolio

has a 5% return assumption, so it's not high.

So we will be dialing back the risk needle even further

moving into 2026.

Want to see if there's any questions.

Colleagues, questions, comments, Council Member Wong.

Yeah, I just have one question.

In table five of the report, there was a comparison

of the performance with some other investments.

And I noticed that East Bay Mudd has very high rates of return.

Do you know what they're doing?

What are the decisions they're making that enables that?

Yeah, I won't get into specifics other than to say PFRS is not even

on the same ballpark as East Bay Mudd.

East Bay Mudd is an open, active pension system.

so they are continuing to take on more equity risk and more private market risk.

PFERS is a closed system, and to use the example we talked about in the board meeting,

this is a portfolio that's played 18 holes of golf, and we're beginning our walk to the clubhouse.

There's only about 500 or 600 members left, and the average age is somewhere in the 80s for PFERS.

That's different than East Bay, CalPERS, and CalSTRS that we use in that table.

as we continue to de-risk I would expect the P first performance numbers to look

even more different from their peers moving forward hmm okay all right thank

you calling in the name that signed up for item number three missus Otto

Olabala. The reason why I signed up for this item is because it got me a little

bit more confused about the ballot measure that's going to the voters related

to membership of this board. So in the report it says that the total membership

membership is 585, 376 are retirees, and 209 are beneficiaries.

So I would assume that these beneficiaries who are not elderly, necessarily,

could be potential members of the board.

And you wouldn't have to go through this change of membership requirement

based on this age component that you are saying is the issue.

So I contend that it's not about anything other than a large percentage

of these members don't live in Oakland, and therefore it's an inconvenience

to come here to serve on these boards, unless they do it on Zoom.

I might be wrong.

but i just think that ballot measure needs some more verification of the validity of being put

on the ballot because membership has 209 beneficiaries who are not necessarily elder

members of the community thank you for your comments chair that concludes all speakers

on item number three okay um i will entertain a motion excuse me um david jones uh treasury

administrator and plan administrator uh for the police and fire retirement system i just wanted

to let this uh body know that mr john speakman a long-standing board member of about 20 years

passed away during the holidays it was a very very sad um unexpected uh situation he also served as

a firefighter as council member unger knows for you know 25 years so he has put has put over 45

years of his life um for the city of oakland and just wanted to let you know that tomorrow at 10

o'clock we're going to have our monthly board meeting and we'll be presenting a resolution

uh to the family in honor of uh of mr john speakman i don't know um remember hunger if you want to

adjourn um or you know if you would like to do that this uh this morning but i would really

appreciate that thank you we will we'll do so um uh councilman brown

Excellent. Should the motion be just to receive and file the report?

I believe so. Okay. I'll make that motion.

Yes. Accepted and filed. I'll second that.

Thank you. That was a motion made by Council Member Brown and Council Member Wong.

To receive and file this informational report in committee, on roll, Council Members Brown?

Aye. Council Member Unger? Aye. Council Member Wong? Aye.

and chair ramachandran aye thank you item number three passes with four eyes to receive and file

this informational report in committee reading in item number four receive an informational report

on the ratings for the general obligation obligation bond series 2025 measure u from

moody's investor service and the standard and poor's rating and we have two speakers that signed up

okay to the staff

Good morning through the chair members of the committee. I would like to take a moment to introduce Mr. Jaime Trejo with PA PFM financial advisors.

I also want to once again publicly acknowledge the esteemed team in our finance department that led us through our bonding process and also council.

Thank you for your leadership and support throughout this process.

I also want to take a moment to acknowledge Ms. Deborah Edgeley and Ms. Jay Mazzeek who

have been key advisors through this process and also it would be I'd be remiss by not

acknowledging Mr. Bradley Johnson and Ms. Monica Davis who supported this effort.

Certainly it was quite a process.

I'm very excited to be here.

I think the information that will be shared today is very pertinent for where we are going

into our budget process and certainly we're taking that under advisement so

it's great that PFM is here to give this presentation and with that said I

will turn it over to Jami thank you

good morning hi I'm a try hope here from financial advisors and I do have a

presentation I'm not sure where it's oh there we go all right so this

presentation is broken up into three parts the first part we'll talk about

about the background credit ratings, just the folks

kind of have a little bit of background

what we're talking about.

Then we'll talk about Oakland's credit rating,

and then we'll see how Oakland compares to other cities

in California and Nashville.

First thing, I gotta say a couple things.

One, I used to be a former rating analyst.

I used to work for S&P.

Don't hold that against me.

And the second thing, don't shoot the messenger.

I'm just presenting information that rating agencies

have put out there publicly.

I just summarized and presented it, not my opinion.

All right.

First slide here, what is a credit rating?

Credit rating, you know, it's a symbol used

to define the credit worthiness of a municipality.

So what credit agencies want to know

and what they want to signal to investors is the likelihood

you're going to repay and the willingness to repay.

Right? Are you going to pay your bonds on time?

What determines credit rating?

We'll talk a little bit about that on the next slide.

They're determined by pretty much three agencies, Moody's, S&P, and Fitch.

There are a few others out there, but those are the three kind of nationally recognized credit rating agencies.

Who uses them?

Institutional and retail investors to make a decision on whether or not to buy bonds.

Commercial lenders, right, if you're looking for a line of credit or bank loan, they use credit ratings.

And why is it important?

A higher credit rating signals to the market, you know, your credit worthiness.

it increases your investor base and it lowers the cost of borrowing.

And here on the right hand side, we kind of see investment grade ratings.

So anything from a triple B to a triple A are kind of investment grade ratings.

If you're below that, it makes it a little bit harder to access the capital markets.

And if you do, you would have to pay more money for what you borrow.

The next slide here.

I won't read this in detail, but these are the factors

that determine the credit rating.

This is a summary of the criteria for both S&P and Moody's.

They look at the same thing, but slightly differently.

They look at the economy, the financial performance.

But financial performance are looking

at how your general fund is operating.

If you have a rating on utilities,

they look at how the utility funds are operating,

whether it's a surplus or deficit, reserves and liquidity.

They use the audit, it's kind of a backward looking view

and your budget for forward looking view.

So for reserves and liquidity, they'll look at, you know,

what they consider available, unrestricted,

on an audited basis.

Management, this is not a score on personnel,

but a score on policies and practices.

So these policies and practices are supposed

to outlive whoever's there, right?

When there's turnover, the kind of the culture

of management should live on debt and liabilities it's just a notching factors not nothing factors

but notching factors would be uh whatever would be local resources so you know does the city have

ballot measures parcel tax geo bond capacity something to oakland scores very well and the

last one is other considerations when they determine a credit rating they'll spit out their

model spit out an indicative rating and then they'll see how you compare to other peers in

similar categories does this look more like a double a triple a so they'll make that determination

in addition to credit rating there's outlooks so an outlook is a signal to investor investor

community the direction a rating might go so all rating agencies have outlets

in its opinion on how the rating might go in the next 12 to 24 months

Oakland all three are negative outlook and what that means is that you know a

meaningful chance of a rating downgrade in the next 12 to 18 months a stable

outlook which the vast majority ratings have means unlikely to change in a

positive outlook means there's a chance for an upgrade all right now let's talk

about Oakland here we have open three credit ratings so on the table a chart

to the right in the right top corner you see oakland's moody's credit rating the double a2

which is the third best way you can get so very very high very strong rating for s p you're still

in the double a category but at a double a minus and fitch has your rating at an a

fish doesn't actually rate any of your general fund debt that's tied to utility and they look

at the general fund uh but it's a a nonetheless and in these three boxes on bottom we have the

the rating history and as you're aware all three ratings were lowered in late 2024.

but since that downgrade the ratings for at least moody's s p and actually fitch

have been affirmed so that's good that means the ratings have stabilized

next slide here oakland's credit rating so here is a summary of the strengths of your credit rating

both agencies talked about the large and diverse economic base you're

centrally located in the Bay Area high assessed value per capita economy is

major sectors like logistics tech healthcare transportation strong local

support for supplemental revenue from voters and taxpayers liquidity city

maintains high cash investment levels which is a credit strength and

and management actions that you know both HC said that C was proactive and

enacting bullet but balancing budget actions in 25 to close the gap so you

receive credit for that now what are some of the challenges the main

challenges identified a structural budget and balance what that means that

your expenditures particularly in the general fund are all pacing your revenues

in the general fund.

They noticed you projecting deficits in the out year.

So in 27, 28, 29, they looked at your declining financial

flexibility reserves.

Again, they look back at the audit,

but they saw that your general fund reserves, which they can see,

they look at the, those are unrestricted, available,

and committed and declined 23 through 24.

and they place a high emphasis on financial flexibility.

The last one here is high fixed costs.

I mean, this is pretty common in California,

but high pension and OPEB viabilities.

In the credit rating reports, they do state, you know,

kind of upside and downside scenarios.

So they'll tell you what you need to do to get an upgrade or downgrade.

So the negative outlooks here are kind of,

this is taken exactly from the reports you know they reflect near term financial headwinds

and anticipated structural deficits driven by expenditure growth

and they believe that future budget reductions will be needed to restore long-term sustainability

so that's why the city's credit ratings in the negative outlook for both s p and moody's

Now let's look at the upside.

You know, to get a higher credit rating for Moody's,

what they want, we did have a higher credit rate,

but what they want to see to get back there is meaningful increase

for financial flexibility, meaning they want to see your general fund reserves

increase both on an audited and budget basis and your long-term liability

racial decline below 200.

That's specific to them and their criteria.

criteria. Downside scenario, sustained decline in reserves.

Future budget deficits could lead to a downgrade. S&P, again, we

could return to a stable outlook. If we eliminate the deficit

spending, I mean, we stop using general fund reserves to fill

the gap and achieve positive operating performance. Again,

S&P is looking, they want to see your general fund revenues outpace your general fund expenditures on both an audited and budget basis.

All right.

So now we're going to take a look, see how Oakland compares to cities rated nationally by Moody's.

Oakland's credit ratings here at AA2, which is about the average for Moody's.

So you're about the median credit rating nationally for Moody's, and this is from April 2025.

Ratings don't change all that much year over year.

And then on the next slide, we look at how you compare to cities in California that are rated by S&P.

here your credit rating a double a minus is slightly below the median the median

for all California municipalities is a double a the last slide here and again

why are we talking about credit ratings because it all leads to impacts to sell

general obligation bonds as you know we sold bonds it was a good sell in December

of last year, there was a strong investor demand. You know, we had

about $640 million of orders for about $335 million offered 26

institutional investors, individual institution,

investors participated tax rates, you know, we're happy to

report for the tax exempt bonds, we received a TIC of less than

4%. 5.5 for taxables, obviously, because higher interest rate.

And we did include a refunding that refunding saved taxpayers

$4.7 million dollars so that concludes the presentation I'm available for

questions thank you I mean would you do me a favor real quick before we finish

the presentation could you go back to slide 8 on your presentation

council will be remiss if I did not highlight for you the importance of this

Next slide, this is your roadmap for improving our credit score with both S&P and Moody's.

It's very clear criteria that we need to meet in order to stabilize our outlook and look for better outlooks in the future.

They have notable metrics here regarding our reserve numbers.

Operating for performance, again, that just means we actually need to run surpluses and

improve our general fund balances and about, again, addressing our long term liabilities.

take a slide away from this in terms of what our work looks like going forward

to improve our outlook this is a key one for them because these are their

criteria thanks Jaime appreciate it thank you I will start on that over the

question on that point on this slide so under the Moody section of that slide it

said score the outlook could improve if reserves exceed 30 percent what is our

current guidelines as a city that we follow on best practices related to

reserves because I know there's a legal requirement and then this was this is

what would be optimal your current city reserve policy requires seven and a half

percent of your general purpose fund to be appropriate into your emergency

reserve and we have reserves that also exist for capital improvements and for a

rainy day fund there's nothing in that rainy day fund right now but the totality

of those and other reserves that would be looked at for this particular metric

thank you and 7.5 percent is pretty far off from 30 percent that's recommended

do we have any analysis of what other cities with slightly higher ratings go

from within that range? I don't have a detailed analysis. I'll let you know that the GFOA standard

is closer to about 17%, roughly two months worth of operating performance is the best practice in

GFOA. When we in the fall go back and re-examine your fiscal policies, I think that this meeting

this target and what it looks like would be a really clear key conversation for us to have.

Thank you. And sorry, what standard did you say? The Government Finance Office Association. I'm

sorry, I should not talk in acronyms, GFOA, or the Government Finance Officers Association,

recommends two months of performance, which is roughly 17%.

Thank you.

And has, I know this, you don't have the numbers in front of you,

has the city been at that 17% level before, or have we always been close to that 7.5%?

We have, especially coming into the pandemic, we were in much bigger numbers.

We have been closer to this sort of higher ratio in the past.

I don't have a particular history at my fingertips right now, but we have done better.

A key element that you did, and Jaime mentioned you got credit for, we did stabilize this,

and the evidence of that stabilization will be coming at your next FMC committee meeting

when we talk about your Q4 and your audited ACFER, where we'll be able to show that data to you.

But the action balancing actually did stabilize this, which has sort of helped, again, stabilize our rating.

but we have in the past both immediately going into the pandemic and then when we were sort of

in mid-pandemic we were at higher numbers in terms of our reserve numbers. Thank you and

then another question before I turn it to my colleagues is around if we can go back to slide

If it's not pulled up, that's fine. I have it on the attachment.

But in slide five, it talks about why we're still negative.

We have a negative outlook from all three rating agencies.

And then there's the roadmap on the next page.

Yet in our bond sale, things looked pretty positive.

Is there something you could explain kind of of either why when it comes to bond sale,

the negative outlook doesn't matter as much,

or is this standard for most cities to be negative given our current state of economy right now?

I can't bring the presentation. I'm not sure how to do that here.

But for slide five, most cities have a stable outlook.

I would say maybe 90% of them have a stable outlook.

and the cell went fine because where you still an investment grade rating you

still have ratings in the double a category which is they're very high

ratings if you had a straight for example S&P straight double a minus but

no negative outlook disabled all of even positive the results would have been a

little bit better could you could you repeat that if you had a stable outlook

or positive outlook the results could have been a little bit better

I guess my question is really what factors make us in the negative category despite having

a positive bond sale experience and what's the discrepancy there?

S&P and Moody's do not look at the bond sale.

Those analysts have like no sense or anything of how bonds are sold or even how they're

structured.

just look at the credit fundamentals, the financial, economic fundamentals of a city.

So what they saw compared to other cities in the state and in the country,

your reserve levels significantly declined between fiscal 22 and fiscal 24.

So they felt that your rating was no longer merited to be in the AA or AA plus category.

So they downgraded you to AA minus. Thank you. And if one was to summarize that outlook,

it seems like the two most relevant factors is the reserve levels and the rising expenditures proportional to revenue.

Correct.

Okay.

Sorry, Chair, if I could just interject.

When I made notes about we had a positive performance in the market, we are always striving for a better performance.

A higher bond rating could result in lower interest rates, which would mean savings for our taxpayers.

That's the sort of the train to fully fold through.

As we improve our outlook, we move from a negative to a stable outlook,

from a stable to a positive or up our ratings.

The interest rate charged in the market for a bond sale on a given transaction will be lower,

which results again savings to our taxpayers.

And so that's what we're after.

It also opens more opportunities for refinancing of even prior debt,

which again can result in savings.

Thank you.

And one last question.

One of the slides mentioned $4.7 million in present value savings from refunding bonds.

Could you explain what this means?

That's correct.

We refunded a series of bonds.

It was 2015 bonds, bonds were issued in 2015.

We refunded them with this transaction, so we essentially sold new bonds to pay off the old bondholders,

and we borrowed new bonds at a lower interest rate.

which resulted in savings in their present value of $4.7 million.

So that means the interest payments you would make on debt service was reduced by nearly $5 million.

Thank you.

Colleagues, Councilmember Wong and Brown.

Hi. Thank you.

This is really informative.

When we say savings for taxpayers, like what does that exactly mean?

Does that mean that their tax rate is going to be lower?

can you just walk walk us through that so our geo bonds are the debt service for

our general obligation bonds are covered on the property tax rule so when you get

a property tax statement there's a line there below this the 1% property tax it

says City of Oakland that tax rate that ad valorem tax rate is based on our

outstanding debt if our debt payments are lower the assessment we put on the

property tax is lower and all of the owners of property in the city of

Oakland will pay less so every time we go out for bond issuance we're putting

new debt onto that role and every time we refund it or are able to get a better

deal on it we can lower that collective debt amount sorry David you want to jump

in there just look at it like refinancing your home basically that's

the analogy that you could use where interest rates drop you you know you're

in a better position just to refund that so that's kind of the analogy so when we go to levy in August

for the property tax rate it's just lower basically and also I wanted to just comment on you know your

discussion on the negative outlook that was done it toward the end of 2024 and typically a rating

agency they want to see it's going to take some time so when we went to them in 2025 of this or

last year it was about almost a year or so so they were like you're looking pretty good but typically

they like to have you in that 18 to 24 month window before they'll make a decision so you know

I know our budget is coming up.

We should be mindful of that.

There is going to be some tough decisions to make.

We are planning to potentially go back to the market at the beginning of next year.

So that's a year away to stay on this proper trajectory.

But I just wanted to make it very clear that when you get into your budget deliberations,

Just be mindful of what Jaime has presented and what Brad was saying, your roadmap.

You want to stay on that roadmap.

And if you look in the agenda report, I think it's on page four.

There are four boxes.

It talks about reserves as well as expenses.

Those are other items that they really want you to address.

And I also want to say that they're probably looking at this meeting right now.

So be mindful of that as well, is that, you know, S&P, Moody's, they're analysts.

They live in Oakland.

They attend the meetings.

Some of your investment bankers attend your meetings.

So just keep that, you know, keep it in mind, basically.

That's all I kind of wanted to say.

But, you know, just keep on the right track that we're on right now.

But, yeah, just look at the lower tax rate as just refinancing your home.

Okay.

So basically directly lowering the taxes that would be collected.

That is correct.

How much of a difference does it make?

So let's say if we got an upgrade, like I know it's hard.

Yeah, you can't quantify.

You can't quantify.

I can't tell you, you know, it's going to cost this much less or that much less if we get, you know, a stable

because you can't get an upgrade until you get the stable.

Okay.

Yeah.

But, you know, you should see some movement in the proper direction.

Let's just put it to you like that.

okay and it was also noted though for example in slide 11 that you know it said here on the bond

sale that strong investor demand allowed the city to secure lower than estimated interest rates what

was what were we able to secure versus what was the estimated interest rate excuse me can you

repeat that this was so slide 11 yes on the recent bond sale we had this last right right

it's noted that we actually secured lower than estimated interest rates yes yes what was the

differential between what we secured versus what was estimated the market is always moving I don't

you know tell you what you know what we were you know what we're going to get out at but the point

that you want to look at is six hundred and thirty eight eight million dollars in total orders so you

see that's almost doubly oversubscribed so you had almost double the amount of bonds in the market

versus the investors that were willing to invest for it and as a result of that as as hymie mentioned

what happens is you reprice your bonds so basically you lower the rate some of the investors will

not care anymore they'll go away but you're still able to fill those orders for that 304

$334 million offered, which is a good thing, as well as I'd like to point out to 26 institutional

investment firms who are interested in your bonds.

And I took a look, and there are some names that are interested in the Oakland bonds that

I've never seen before.

I don't want to mention them here, but there are definitely some asset managers that, you

know, haven't looked at our name in the past.

So let's continue with that.

I don't know if you want to add to that, Jaime, or not, but that's a good thing as

well.

So, but to your point, you know, we were able to reprice and get the tax exempts to, you know, a little bit under 4%, and then your taxable is at around 5.5.

Through the chair, the council, and so one thing I also want to add, you know, one of the key drivers with respect to the value of those bonds is what's on your project list that we get from departments, department transportation, public works, whatever the case may be.

As David mentioned, you're looking to get back in the market here pretty soon.

One of the things I think is really critical and important to emphasize over and over again

is the fact that the investment in our public facilities is critical and it's important,

specifically the facilities that we own.

We're in a place where we have to take care of our own house.

And by that, I mean our public works, our parks facilities all across the cities have

to be a priority.

In addition, our public safety facilities, our fire stations are at a point of, in some respect, beyond disrepair.

And so we have to, as we go back into the market, there will be competing interests across the entire city outside of this organization,

but quite candidly, we have to reinvest in our own facilities.

So that's something I'm going to ask that you all keep in mind.

I've had conversations with many of our labor partners, and this is at top of mind for them,

especially on the public works and on the fire side.

So I just want to put that on you all's radar, but one of the key drivers is the value of the items on your project list as well.

Okay, great.

And I have one last thing, which is on slide 7, it was also noticed that we rely on optimistic assumptions and budgets.

Is that something, Bradley, you can speak to, or is that something we are correcting for?

Right, and this is speaking to what Jaime and I were discussing in terms earlier about

ensuring that we actually have positive performance at the end.

When we go through the budget process, and this body will not be unfamiliar with me saying this,

we have to have an accurate estimate, especially on the expenditure side, of what we actually plan to spend.

Our revenues, we're working on truing up in terms of methodology.

some of that is it's hard to catch a market that's changing but on the expense

side which is where I think we really need to be focused we cannot plan for

service demands or expect service demands that we do not budget for because

when we do that we produce overspending and that is one of those things that

again David was mentioning if you go to the report on the expense side that

they're very very interested in what we demand what we expect in terms of

service needs to be commensurate with the resources we put aside for those same

services and so as we move forward through our budget process we'll want to

make sure that we have a good link between that service delivery on the

expenditure side and the resources we're allocating for it.

Gotcha. Thank you.

No I was just gonna add that with regards to the optimistic assumptions you know

that's primarily tied to that measure for the $40 million

that is going to go before the voters.

So they're mindful of that as well.

Sorry about that, Brad.

I was going to answer one of your questions.

You had a question about on the last slide,

stronger investment allow for teachers to secure lower

than the estimated interest rates.

So that's comparing the good faith estimates we provided

when the bond authorization resolution was adopted.

So there we said our good faith estimate

of what we thought interest rates would be at.

I don't have that number with me, unfortunately,

but the sale price is lower than what was presented

to city council at that date.

Anything else from administration?

Oh, okay.

Thank you.

That was very comprehensive and helpful.

I understand that rating agencies are really

want to see, are noting significant progress

in 2025 and I think that's very important to point out compared to the end of

2024 there's been massive progress made

but the point is to keep that going for another minimum year

till we see changes in ratings and that is very

much noted and that roadmap is

certainly, hopefully, will be taken into consideration in the upcoming budget process.

Colleagues, Council Member Brown.

Excellent.

Well, I can't, you know, to chair Ramachandran's point, that's what I wanted to continue to emphasize.

I think that the report really clearly laid out, and also prior reports.

I know during the budget time, we had the roadmap to physical health,

And then we also have the item that's coming up next, just kind of further aligning with just our strategic goals.

And I think that it's important to just really emphasize, you know, what the difference was in 2024, right?

Being able to actually, in comparison to 2025, being able to actually be able to balance the budget.

And that being like one of the most important, one of many factors and really being able to go out and sell the bonds.

And so, and then on page, which page is that? Page eight, where it literally outlines for each of these agencies how we can, you know, hopefully continue to increase our ratings.

So I really hope that, you know, whoever ends up being on our budget team as we move forward in the coming months,

that we continue to really focus and prioritize on these efforts.

And then I do want to just give an amazing shout out because in 2025, you know, myself, Council Member Unger, Council Member Wong,

all of us, you know, ended up being on the budget team.

And at least for myself, I was newer to the process.

and I think that there's just so many amazing leaders

within the city of Oakland, whether our finance director,

Bradley, Deborah, Administrator Johnson,

Monica, and Ben Rosenfield, right,

just so many folks that really came alongside us

to help guide us through the process,

and so I just wanna really recognize and honor

that it was 100% a team effort

and just really grateful for that guidance.

And I think maybe the last question

wanted to ask is on slide 10 where it outlines other municipalities and like

what their rating is I think in the future I would love to maybe if we could

enhance this slide a little bit more where it actually outlines you know who

are what are some of the cities in the state of California that are currently

have a more of a positive rating so that we can really dive and dive into and

look to see what they are doing within their local governments

to see if there's any things that we can also align with.

And then on the flip side of that,

making sure we understand what are some of these other cities

that have lower ratings and how we can avoid those pitfalls.

Thank you.

I also would like to kind of reiterate for this board,

the work that goes into this.

I mean, this is like a nine-month project.

So I'd like to, you know, this is a long-term thing.

This is not just a snapshot in time.

So, you know, we've had issues in the past.

We're on the right trajectory.

But this is really a long-term process.

And it's not going to happen overnight.

And I just wanted to let that be known.

and I also would like to introduce, you know, one of my, well, my assistant, Don Granados here

from the Treasury Department, who really spearheaded this financing along with Mr. Greg

Danillion. He's not here today, but I did want to pass that along because anybody that has gone

through this knows how much work really goes into doing a financing.

I mean, it's, I mean, we are already talking about, you know, next year right now.

And we're just, you know, about to move into February.

So it's, you know, and that is in addition to our daily activity, our daily workload as well.

Don, I don't know if you want to add anything.

I just want to say thank you, David.

and I am honored to be part of the process and moving things forward.

Thank you. Okay, we will move to public comment.

Calling in the names that signed up for item number four,

Ms. Asada Olabala and Kevin Daly.

I'm not sure, but my memory says that when the grand jury report came out and said some

of the things about your negative rating, you kind of like was dismissive of it. Because

if you took it serious at the time the report came out, you would have had this kind of

presentation given to you, based on that presentation, then you would apply for bonds.

But you applied for the bonds and then get a report, did we do the right thing?

I mean, the order of the way you did it doesn't make sense.

The other thing is, in order for you to move forward with some credibility of your budget,

you're going to have to make future budget reductions.

So at any time, you can go back and address the budget.

You don't have to wait until the end of 2027.

Are you going to do this right away, or are you just going to let it linger on?

I suggest you do it right away.

The other thing is, because you have now invested with Measure U in affordable housing,

and

Broadway safety

interstructure improvements

renovation of parks, libraries

senior centers and other

public facilities. That means

that investment has to

stay stable. So when you do

budget reductions you're not going to reduce

in those areas. You're going to continue

because the administrator just

says this is important that you

invest in these areas. So what

are you going to do budget reduction

areas are. What are you going to be? The homeless?

Affordable housing? No.

Illegal dumping? Maybe.

So you can get on this right away because you're saying you're not going to

divest from the support and investment

in all the areas I just identified. And if you try to do it,

I'm going to come back to you and say, why did you go after bonds to support something

and took a thank you for your comments miss Olabala okay thank you chair that

concludes all speakers that signed up for item number four thank you and do

we receive and file this to the parliamentarian or is this going to full

council okay okay thank you I will make the motion to receive and file this

report. Thank you we have a motion made by Chair Ramachandran seconded by

Councilmember Brown. To receive and file this informational report in committee

on roll Councilmembers Brown. Aye. Unger. Aye. Wong. Aye. And Chair Ramachandran. Aye. Thank

you item number four passes with four ayes to receive and file this

informational report in committee. Now reading in item number five. Receive an

informational report from the city administrator on the fiscal year 2025 to

2028 citywide strategic plan six-month update and we have four speakers that

signed up for this item

good morning Monica Davis deputy city administrator I'm here with a wonderful

team of staff who've been really hard working on bringing forth an update to

the strategic planning effort.

To remind you all, the strategic planning effort

kicked off in March of 2024.

We held a retreat with the agency directors,

the mayor's office at that time,

and key stakeholders to really just ideate on,

what are we seeing here in the city

and where are the opportunities for growth?

We engaged a consulting firm called Be Present Consulting

to help facilitate a number of interviews with department heads, key stakeholders within

the city to just also better understand the landscape of what's going on here at the city.

Also met with five focus groups of staff across the city, ranged from our public safety team

to brand new hires, just trying to digest what their experiences were so we could incorporate

that into the plan.

convened 30 person staff team, the strategic planning design team to help, you know, pull

all of that feedback together and create the strategic planning document.

So you all heard this item in the summer of 2025, and we are now in implementation phase

and it's six months in.

So I've committed to providing a six month update as we progress through the plan, and

so that's why I'm here.

Just to remind you, there are five strategic priorities,

streamline operations, fostering

cross-departmental collaboration,

enhancing communication and coordination,

optimizing our workforce management,

and aligning our budget with citywide priorities.

I've been able to hear from all of you

that this is also in alignment with what you all

want to see more of.

And the goal here with implementing these three years

of strategic priorities is to really develop

and build our organizational health for the city.

And the plan is to then implement or develop

then a more outward facing strategic plan in the out years.

So this first year, we're really trying to implement

this menu of actions that are in the strategic plan.

In the second year, we'll be iterating more,

trying to benchmark what we've accomplished and sort of shift as needed.

And then year three is trying to figure out how to continue our sustained growth through this work.

And then we have a lot of folks involved in supporting the strategic planning effort.

Really grateful for the staff engagement on this high-performing organization team

that we have with leadership.

From their steering committee, we have six folks really helping provide guidance

around the implementation, and then I dedicated 27 staff members helping to uplift each of

these respective priorities.

And I just wanted to note that as we've been engaging in this work, there's a lot of crossover

in this effort.

So at times, moving forward, for example, we'll be partnering a couple of the teams

to be able to help leverage that brain trust movement forward.

I'm so grateful to this team.

this is my favorite part of my job, to be able to uplift and have this really hardworking group of folks

help move these key items forward to help make the city of Oakland better.

With that, I'm going to invite our team members to provide updates on the progress they've been making.

And I'll start with Michelle and Tara.

Good morning.

My name is Tara Duvall.

I'm the management assistant for planning and building.

Today I am representing the streamline operations team.

So the goal of our streamline operations team is to work in areas identified in our strategic plan that could make the city more efficient.

With the help of our coach, we were able to meet with some key members of both the HR and contracts team.

during which we work to understand their processes and discover ways in which our

team can help meet their efficiency goals while we're just getting underway

with HR we found out more about the external contracts audit that happened

and the recommended action items that came from it our team is currently

working on ways to help prioritize the recommendations for a smoother

contracting process and then I will hand it over to

Good morning.

My name is Karina Liu.

I'm here to present on Strategic Priority 2.

The priority for this is around cross-collaboration amongst departments.

Subpriority 1 focuses on coordination through working groups, including community engagement

and data collaboration.

This work aligns with an existing administrative instruction to institutionalize community

engagement standards and procedures and is progressing as expected.

Subpriority 2 focuses on the development and coordination of housing plans.

This work has been ongoing and is progressing as expected, largely because Housing and Community

Development's department has a comprehensive and strategic approach.

Subpriority objectives were already accomplished in year one, and this area has transitioned

into ongoing tracking, monitoring, and refinement to ensure alignment over time.

Subpriority three is building a holistic approach to public safety, including emergency preparedness,

and foundational progress has been made in this area, including enabling AC alert contact

information to be updated using employee data, improving the city's ability to communicate

with the staff during emergencies, and a disaster council public information warning team meeting

has been convened, bringing together fire and police to improve coordination around emergency

messaging. Because of the focus of sub-priorities four and five, I'm sorry, because of our focus on

sub-priorities one, two, and three. Sub-priorities four and five will continue to advance through

intentional sequencing. In year one, we identified codependent tasks across departments,

and progress in these areas will continue to create conditions necessary to move the remaining

sub-priorities forward in a coordinated way. Overall, progress has been made in each sub-priorities,

and the city continues to position itself to strengthen and foster cross-departmental collaboration.

Good morning. My name is Monica Palaioloc, and I am the public information officer for the office of Inspector General,

and I am here as part of team three to really look at enhancing communication

and coordination for the city. So my job here is to really look at the gaps in

communication internally and think through how to build awareness of the

work that city staff is doing, deepen connection, and potentially create

collaboration. A lot of the work that we're doing is also in relation to what

team 2 is doing. I spoke with folks around the strategic plan team to really

understand what that gap was and the response I got was more information

from administration and agency directors about what is happening in the city, a

space to celebrate wins, communication that would be more periodic in nature, and

and available in a variety of formats.

So keeping that in mind, we have started working on our action items,

which are progressing.

We're about the midway point.

If you notice for the needed improvements,

there are nine sub actions outlined.

Of those that have an asterisk, the citywide communications team

has already started working on that,

which is what Karina Liu was alluding to.

And so I took on, or our team has taken on,

really working on that monthly interdepartmental newsletter

and really thinking about uplifting that.

And so we've gotten progress done,

and we're currently in the process of building out an editorial template

and looking at the processes so that digital leads,

who are people who will be contributing to the newsletter can have a streamlined way of doing it

so that we're not adding to people's portfolio.

And then year two and year three are really about including city council

and then looking at what we've done and see how we can improve on those.

So those are currently stable there, but we're making progress along the way.

so I'll give it over to team four now.

Hi, good morning.

Andrea Mariano, she, her AA pronouns,

and I'm the HR manager over organizational development and training.

And we also have Janera Burton just on the team to answer questions as well

from our optimized workforce management team.

So we wanted to come to you along with the handouts you've already been given

and talk to you about how we're really approaching this work.

We want to approach workforce optimization from a structural perspective,

which is going to really focus on improvements in the employee lifecycle.

So we're going to define that as from talent acquisition, recruitment and hiring to onboarding,

career growth and development, performance management,

really keeping an eye on advancement and retention,

and then even off-boarding and succession planning.

So we want to look at it as a whole.

From there, we want to look at the processes for employees

and some of the frameworks we can improve and utilize,

such as the SPOC model,

which is the single point of contact existing

in every department, looking at that framework,

and then also just HR processes in general.

And then we want to enhance access to resources.

We think this is a pretty large gap.

Everybody using the same forms,

everybody utilizing the same process,

and really starting to focus in on improving just HR processes,

as well as optimizing them to be more efficient.

And from there, we do have some things in the exploratory phase

that we're looking at in year one.

So this is really enhancing communication.

We plan to use the intranet for that, kind of revive it and improve it as a central hub

for information for employees, as well as be able to, for departments to be utilizing

the same resources.

Another thing that we're going to look at is really increasing how departments communicate

with each other when we are looking at advancing racial equity.

So we will partner with our stakeholders, Department of Race and Equity.

That is a little bit down the road.

They're now working, we're working on what type of tools we'll utilize to get that information.

But our goal as this team is to provide access to frameworks, tools, and analysis, things

that they can pull data from, different departments, and the Department of Race and Equity is going

to partner with us.

The last two things that we're going to look at and we're in the exploratory phase is we

want to make sure that we're strengthening our core leadership here in the city from

our top tier of leadership to our management frontline supervisors is providing a roadmap

of just structured and development and skill enhancement.

So we can, and we're looking at that in the employee life cycle from who's currently here,

talent of future leadership and then also succession making sure that our

knowledge doesn't go out the door when people do exit the city and then the

last thing that we're looking at is workload management and that's a really

big topic that's come up within the departments is a couple of questions

are the jobs that currently exists modern and current do they meet the needs

of modern government and if not should we be looking at those classifications

and then the other is the workload that is being presented to employees is it as

efficient as it can be or should we be looking at it differently and that is it

for ours I will pass it on to our money team

good morning Mei Li Wong deputy chief of the Department of Violence Prevention

I'll be presenting today with Megan Weir from DOT, and then I also want to acknowledge

our other team members who are part of our team, which is Tiffany Kirkpatrick, sitting

over there from the budget office.

We have Damond Simmons from the fire department, and then also Shana Hirschfield-Gold from

the sustainability and resilience division of the city administrator's office.

And together we are called the money team.

We're excited to be working on strategic priority number five, as you see up there.

We have two main objectives over the next couple of years, which is overall to align

the budget with citywide priorities.

In year one, we're going to be focused on launching the evaluation criteria tools citywide

in preparation for the budget process.

We realize there's a lot of need out in the community, a lot of services that people would

like to see funded.

And so we're providing a tool to departments to help approach the budget planning process in a way that is equitable and also prioritizes essential services through a consistent and transparent framework.

The second objective is to establish aligned priorities for integration into departmental work plans.

And this is really to ensure that priorities from city council and the mayor are integrated consistently into departmental work plans.

Okay, so here's a timeline of where we've been and where we're going.

As I mentioned, the first objective is year one.

That's where our team is focused on right now.

The last six months, our team presented to the finance meeting, the finance managers

at the meeting, monthly meeting, to refresh people's memory on the evaluation criteria

tool.

We then administered a survey to understand how folks used the tool during the last two-year budget cycle.

We met with the DOT Capital Improvements Project team to understand how they center equity in their budget planning process.

And we've also met with the Race and Equity team to explore the synergy between the Evaluation Criteria tool

and the already existing Service and Equity Impact Statement that departments have been using for several years now.

Over the next three months, our team is going to develop a single tool that integrates both

the evaluation criteria and the service equity impact statement into one. We're going to be

piloting that tool with the Department of Transportation, DVP, IT, and also the fire

department during this upcoming mid-cycle budget process. And then we're going to gather feedback

from that process to create a single tool that's rolled out during fiscal year 27-29

and biannual budget planning process.

So now my colleague Megan is gonna talk to you both,

talk to you all about the tool,

and I'll hand it over to her.

Thank you, Meili.

Megan, we're Assistant Director DOT,

and really just wanted to provide you a little bit more

of a concrete example of what we're talking about

with respect to the evaluation criteria scale.

This slide depicts the scale that was adopted

by the citywide strategic plan

with criteria including whether or not a budget item has a legal mandate,

implications for equity, an assessment of the planning and viability, alignment

with whether or not there is existing resources, the department's capacity to

implement the recommended action, as well as support and communications. And you

can see a high level of alignment overall with the strategic plan framework

and these criteria on the next slide I wanted to talk a little bit more about

this is actually what departments have been implementing in recent years so the

evaluation criteria is really a leveling up by the city of criteria and assessing

additions to the budget so previously departments have assessed service

impacts as well as equity keeping equity as an as the North Star for the city and

our departments we've been working closely with the Department of Race and Equity with respect to

lessons learned to date and how this new evaluation criteria scale can help us really evolve the

assessment to encompass more of those categories. And as Maylee mentioned, we're excited that DOT,

the Department of Violence Prevention, the Fire Department, and IT will be working with us in

this mid cycle budget process to develop and pilot the tool and that

concludes our presentation that Monica I don't know if you had any thank you

thank you everyone colleagues any questions or comments Councilmember

Unger than Brown thank you all for this I'm not sure if this is for the

streamlining team or the workforce team obviously there are a lot of priorities

here a lot of things we need to fix and we're probably not going to be able to

get to all of them you know we're gonna have to prioritize and I want to put my

thumb on the scale in favor of fixing our hiring practices we have a real

bottleneck with hiring where people die on lists where people wait on lists so

long that they get hired elsewhere by other cities you know I've been and I

don't know why this problem is so intractable I've been fighting against

for 30 years when I missed the first day of the fire department training tower

because HR never told me that I was hired and you know these sort of problems

have persisted for so long and I don't think we can solve any of our problems

in any of our departments until we really fix the hiring piece so that's

just sort of my statement about priorities

excellent yeah I just wanted to also just thank everyone for their hard work

I had the honor of interacting with Team 4 around some of the hiring and onboarding practices and was able to give, you know, just some feedback, whether it was, you know, when I was hired first with the City of Oakland and then again for a second round.

And I think I've even in a short amount of time, I've been able to see some of those practices, like at least hiring in the council offices, begin to get better.

And so I just want to shout that out because just really being able to see like the coming, you know, everyone coming together to really try to solve some issues that have been just really longstanding.

And so I guess to my council colleagues, if you haven't had an opportunity to meet with Team 4 around just hiring to share your experience,

I think that the feedback that I was able to provide, I really saw very quickly some of the updates be made.

So I just wanted to shout that out.

And then lastly, of course, I'm interested in all of the teams, but I'm really having a look at just team five around just some of the alignment around citywide priorities.

Very, you know, looking forward to seeing the evaluation criteria utilized.

I know it will just be a pilot as we approach the mid cycle.

but I guess I kind of have a question as we go into once we kind of get feedback

from the pilot and how it goes I think the form is great just I guess through

the chair to the administration I guess Monica wanted to ask do you plan on using

like this tool you know how we had those budget it was the budget study sessions

where all of the departments came and presented to the council I just wanted to

ask like what would it look like to utilize this tool as the departments are

presenting to the City Council through the chair to Councilmember Brown I

don't have an answer yet because we have to do the pilot to see how it turns out

I will say that the current tool is not shared during the deliberation time

period it's created at the end during the publication and so if I'm hearing you

correctly there could be a desirability to see that in advance of the adoption

of the budget yes indeed I think I guess you know I guess my reflection would be

as we were approaching the budget and during the budget session we were able

to hear from the various departments and maybe each department kind of

articulating to us in in different ways like what their priorities were what the

impact would be and so when I look at an evaluation criteria here you know I know

this is just a pilot but I imagine that you could probably create something that

all of the departments are kind of reporting out in a more streamlined way

so just wanted to put that on your radar.

Mm-hmm.

Excellent.

Okay.

Council Member Wong.

Thanks.

I did want to echo my colleagues' comments, Council Member Plunker,

on just the emphasis on hiring.

Some people know that I applied to eight different jobs with the city,

and I know I was not qualified for maybe all of them,

but I didn't hear back on a single one of them.

So my joke is I was so determined to work for the city of Oakland

that I had to run for city council.

But I just, there is something wrong that it also befuddles me,

and we need to fix that.

The other thing I just wanted to note is the use of technology

that i think is going to be really important especially around cross department collaboration

and opportunities to do that i've mostly worked for government and i've still been struck i think

by some of the um outdated both hardware and technology that we have here in the city of

oakland and i think we live in you know silicon valley we should be able to use technology to

you know modernize our government and then I had just one really specific question on the

evaluation criteria on the support and slash communications criteria which I can understand

why it's also needed I also wonder if there's something about that that would bias us towards

things that are the status quo just because you know can can that be spoken to more around that specific criteria.

I'm sorry from that team this is from the uh through the chair could you just clarify the the ask

I missed it. Yeah just an explanation on this sorry the from team five on a line

budget with citywide priorities just in I just like to understand this concept

around evaluating on support slash communications which is an evaluation

around you know stakeholders and communication strategies and whatnot

and whether that is going to evaluate for, like, I just wonder if as we,

because this is going to be used to evaluate each of the services, right,

and that if this could inadvertently bias the service simply because there's been more, you know,

public communication around it, and that could also then bias things towards maintaining status quo

versus maybe a new service that there's not as much public awareness around.

So I just want to understand what is the intent with that particular criteria.

Sure.

I think that's a really good question and something that as we're conducting the pilot,

I'm excited about the different departments that we have represented in the pilots,

you know, from the fire department to DOT to DVP and IT.

So for each of those categories, it's going to be something that we're going to be really learning

by doing with subject matter experts as we work to figure out like how do we refine these

categories and how does it reflect the city's larger values with respect to the services

that we're hearing we have a need for.

So I think that will definitely be something that we'll be addressing in more detail in

the pilot.

Okay.

Yeah, that sounds good.

And I understand why it's there.

I just, again, when we think through criteria, it's really important in case it biases us

towards certain decision-making and I just wanted to point out that that

could potentially be used to bias towards just maintaining status quo or

just think or even departments or divisions within the department that

have a large communication capacity versus those that don't so thanks and if

if I'm made through the chair to councilmember Wong that criteria isn't

about existing dedicated resources right it's about the the thought process of

the department to identify and be strategic in the resources and the

community stakeholders they're planning to talk to how thought through is there

support identified and their communication plan identified

thank you councilman Brown and then I just have one more clarifying question I

guess and I don't think I saw it in the report so through the chair to the

administration is will you all be reporting back to us on updates every

six months through the chair yes we will be providing updates every six months

unless it's in a regular course of business on a dedicated item that would

come before you okay excellent yeah I think I would really I would greatly

appreciate the continued updates because it really helps us understand where we

are in the process on some of these things and then I think maybe lastly I

would share I know I've had the opportunity to meet with some of the

the teams but I guess you know through the chair to the administration is it

is it your goal to also have more of the teams kind of engage also at the

council level with like some of the things that they're working on as well

Through the chair to Councilmember Brown, there are four coaches, myself and one of them, Candice Parker-Treg, Viss Ayer, and Patricia Marino-Price, and we each have a team or two.

And we help facilitate engagement with subject matter experts or key stakeholders as they move through the priority identification and action implementation.

Excellent.

that sounds good but I guess just putting on the radar that you know always

great to engage with the council members as well whether it has to do with you

know what we're directly hearing from constituents in the community about

their experience and then even just any feedback that we may have as well thank

you let's move to public comment calling in the names that signed up to speak on

item number five, Ms. Asada Olabala, Kevin Daly, David Boatwright, and Blair Beekman.

I can't understand how you have a plan for racial equity when you can't even identify

where you've ever accomplished racial equity for African Americans.

So I just don't see how you're going to be able to do it. I'm concerned about with this new

identification throughout the country of financial fraud and programming services,

and if we're going to uplift the opportunity to take on identification.

I'm also concerned with nonprofits that we'd never evaluate

and some kind of plan to have an evaluation.

I'm concerned about the lack of transparency and lack of monitoring of the housing authority.

Oakland Housing Authority that provides your public housing

but you have no accountability

or reckoning on what's going on.

I'm concerned about grants that are awarded and the credibility

of those grants. I'm going to give you an example. There was a grant that was

supposed to be an opportunity to deal with communities that had been

victims of redlining and we gave that grant to Chinatown

to be able to facilitate building a walkway to Jack London Square.

I'm also concerned about the lack of potential,

not dealing with gentrification in this city,

the fact that you are a sanctuary city,

and what is your strategic plan being a sanctuary city?

You don't have anything for the NSA sustainability plan,

which is crucial that you have to have as a strategic plan.

You don't have anything that guides the partnership with OUSD,

which is supposed to be a relationship that's valuable.

You don't have anything that's...

Thank you for your comments, Ms. Olabala.

David Boatwright, District 4.

For the current budget and beyond, we need to focus on some things.

Authorizing only spending in the balanced budget, keeping in mind over expenditures

that inevitably occur, and dedicate more, and I emphasize more manpower to project

and operations oversight to limit over expenditures.

And some examples of that would be the city's lack of oversight

on the tiny homes project and past,

and I emphasize past, fire station 4 renewal missteps

and all grants.

Plans are nothing without good execution.

Hi, Kevin Daly.

I'm a co-chair of the Policy and Legislative Committee of the Bicyclists and Pedestrian Advisory Commission, and speaking for myself.

I'm concerned on how the change, the plan changed the dismantling of the Department of Transportation, removing parking, parts of parking over to finance will affect their strategic plan.

We'll no longer have the ability in transportation to fully control transportation decisions.

Finance does not have the expertise in parking that OakDot has.

Last night, I was leading a discussion with the committee on the topic.

The city refused to show up to this.

They refused to reply.

They refused to provide information.

This seems to be a violation of MTC 4108, which requires the city to provide administrative and technical support to BPACs.

If that's not provided, MTC could pull funding from Oakland.

So I'd like to find out what's going on with the strategic plan as related to parking.

there will be a million dollar charge maybe more or less city won't tell me

for sure but thanks thank you for your comments switching to zoom user Blair

Beekman you can unmute yourself and begin your comments all right thank you

Blair Beekman happy morning to everyone happy new day that we can work as a

as a country to work ourselves out of Minneapolis.

The problems of Minneapolis, we can work together.

Good luck on those efforts, what we come up with.

Thanks for this item.

I listened to the bond item previously.

I forgot to sign up for it.

I didn't realize to sign up for it.

So I listened intently.

Thank you for these two items today.

I was around when you're going through the budget deliberations

in the summer of 2025, or was it 24?

I'm sorry.

Yeah, I guess it was 24.

It was a hectic time.

It was a harrowing time.

And you guys are trying to come out of it the best you can.

I heard words of a three-year plan and how to be working

on your budget deficit issues, I'm assuming,

is what the three-year plan was about.

In being from San Diego, I think they're only second

to you guys as having the biggest budget deficit in the state

for local cities.

So definitely compare notes with San Diego.

I think they can learn a lot from you guys

that I think you had a real sense that we don't have

to fix budget things immediately and that we need

to definitely be providing social services.

I think you guys may have done great in that department

for the community.

Thank you immensely.

Yes, Lily.

San Diego is having a bit of trouble in that area.

They're cutting things and slashing things first

and asking questions later kind of thing.

So we've been trying to work it out.

Good luck what you can be doing.

I hope this sort of effort, you know,

our continued work on macro, putting macro first

with our issues, we can build our future for this country

in asking for macro funding and macro issues.

We can get great examples.

Good luck in those continued efforts to create good examples. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Chair, that concludes all speakers on item number five.

Thank you and is this to receive and file on committee as well?

The request is to board on consent for the February 3rd meeting please.

Okay. Is there a motion?

Thank you we have a motion made by Councilmember Unger seconded by Councilmember Brown to

approve the recommendations of staff and to forward this informational report to the February

3rd City Council agenda on sorry February 3rd City Council agenda on roll Councilmember

Brown aye Unger aye Wong aye and chair Ramachandran aye thank you item number five passes with

four eyes to forward this informational report to the February 3rd City Council

agenda on consent moving on to item sorry moving on to open forum calling in

the names that signed up for open forum Mrs. Sada Olabala Kevin Daly and Blair

Beekman in no particular order you can come up to the podium

In 1994, President Clinton appointed Barbara Jordan, a U.S. Representative, to chair the

U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform.

The goal was to look into immigration and determine whether it was having an impact

on the American worker.

The result of the report that she laid out said that immigration at its present state

in 1994, if it continued at the level it was, was going to hurt the average African-American

male engaged in low-skill work.

Her recommendation was to cut immigration into this country by one-third.

Her recommendation was ignored.

And in 1996, open borders became the place we created.

Thank you for your comments, Ms. Olavala.

Kevin Daly again speaking for myself.

Yesterday, the city administrator announced, told employees that the effective date of the move of parking from transportation to finance is February 7th.

That's three days before the report to Public Works and Transportation was scheduled.

City Administrator requested a postponement from today for two weeks, apparently,

so that they could go ahead and make the move before they gave the report to the City Council.

I think it's time for the City Council to step forward and take action.

action there are currently transit departments don't have a description they just have a title

lawyers say you can do anything you want with the departments

some depart it's time for the city council to act and decide

thank you for your comments switching to zoom user blair biechman you can unmute yourself and begin

your comments. Hi, Blair Beekman. I wish open forum was two minutes to note. To again go over

some continuing questions and concerns I have about a very interesting compromise choice about

the future of leaving Flock in Oakland, are we going to be truly committed to find a new ALPR

vendor? To again describe, I feel it can be of help to have something like six-month updates,

the counselor committee and how the new ALPR vendor procurement process is moving forward.

And I hope there can be a follow-up Oakland committee meetings

and open public discussion that reduced placement of surveillance tech

in local neighborhoods can often do the same amounts of public safety work

as an oversaturation or plethora of surveillance technology placed in a neighborhood.

Good luck to just be a community effort of procurement and not just by the OPD.

PAC and community needs to be involved as well.

And we can really be keeping the federal government in check at this time

with an open love life philosophy.

Thank you for your comments.

Chair, that concludes all speakers on open forum.

Thank you.

This meeting is adjourned.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.